In a recent appearance on Bloomberg TV’s “Balance of Power,” KISS bassist Gene Simmons discussed how artificial intelligence is affecting the music industry. A.I. music generators, which analyze existing songs to create “new” material, have caused a surge of A.I.-generated music appearing across streaming platforms.
During the discussion, Simmons was asked whether he is concerned about the growing presence of A.I., particularly in the music industry.
“A.I. is a concern if left unregulated,” he said. “Anything — a beautiful horse that you just bring in, if it runs wild… You’ve got to have some parameters that we control instead of A.I. Right now, there’s a country and western star that’s got a number one record of sorts on some chart. [The artist] doesn’t actually exist.”
“The major problem here, potentially, hypothetically and otherwise, is that if states have the right, and this has to be settled right away — the government must get a federal law that encompasses all of A.I. to get some sanity out of this,” Simmons continued. “Because if you can do A.I. legally in Delaware, where you have all your companies so you pay less taxes… Why should they wanna do real music and real art in New York when they can just go to Delaware and do A.I.? No. You need a federal law that encompasses the entire country.
“And I would highly recommend, and I would hope the entire planet really gets together. It’s an issue for the UN to get a world body to accept it, because it’s gonna happen to the same — same thing that happened to the unions in America. You charge too much here, so we’ll do business in China. No. You want to address the A.I. issue worldwide so we can control what the rules are, the comings and the going and what’s the income stream? Who owns the I.P.? Who’s the owner of the trademark?”
Simmons previously shared his thoughts about A.I. during a 2023 interview on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” When asked if he was “excited or worried about artificial intelligence,” he said:
“Music business aside, I am concerned about the lack of legislation. […] The problem with A.I. is not… A.I. is here, whether you like it or not. So let’s look at it smartly and let’s pass legislation. A.I. creates a song using my voice, or what sounds like my voice, with a new song, and it sounds just like me and it definitely sounds like that kind of a thing. So when you buy it, who owns the copyright and the publishing, if A.I. did that? So, is it me, because it sounds like me? You could swear it was me. So these are uncharted [territories].”
In the same interview, Piers Morgan asked Simmons whether or not he cares if someone used an A.I. version of his voice to create music, to which he replied: “We can make a deal.”
